Parents lose baby Charlotte court plea

The parents of Charlotte Wyatt failed again today in their court battle to suspend an order allowing doctors not to resuscitate their desperately-ill child if she stops breathing.

David Wolfe, representing her father Darren Wyatt and his wife Debbie at the Court of Appeal, said his clients had a "nightmare scenario" that their 16-month-old daughter would die before they could prove the original diagnosis of her condition was wrong.

But Lord Justice Thorpe, heading a special panel of three judges who heard the case as a matter of urgency, refused permission to appeal.

He said the High Court judge who made the order, Mr Justice Hedley, would be hearing from experts about any changes to Charlotte's underlying condition on March 14 and in the meantime he would be available to make a decision if anything happened to the child.

The appeal judge said Mr Justice Hedley had taken into consideration new evidence about Charlotte's condition when he refused to lift his order last month.

Mr Wolfe said the judge had asked for evidence to show that Charlotte's "underlying condition" had improved.

He said the position now was that even taking the reports of a consultant paediatric neurologist employed by the NHS Trust caring for Charlotte, the girl was no longer in constant pain, no longer constantly in an oxygen head box and was responding to noise and light and could now receive stimulation from a physiotherapist.

Charlotte's life was not "miserable as it was, in stark contrast to when doctors made the first diagnosis of her condition".